12/10/2026
12 October 1971 – 12 October 2026
Remembering my father, Gene Vincent. ❤️
Fifty-five years ago today, my father died. He was just 36 years old. I was eight.
It is a curious thing to have lived so much longer without someone than with them, and yet to feel that your understanding of them continues to evolve.
As a child, I knew my father through the innocence of childhood. As a young woman, through the stories, memories and impressions left behind. And now, with the perspective that only a lifetime of living can bring, I find myself understanding him in ways that were simply not possible before.
Perhaps that is one of the more extraordinary dimensions of love and loss. That our relationships with those who have gone before us do not necessarily end with their passing. They continue to unfold within us.
The world knew my father as Gene Vincent, a pioneering force in rock ’n’ roll, a man of extraordinary talent, charisma and influence. His voice, his music and his unmistakable presence have transcended generations, but I have increasingly come to appreciate the man behind the legend.
A man shaped by his experiences, his vulnerabilities, his passions and his pain. A man whose gifts were extraordinary, but whose humanity was as imperfect, complicated and fragile as my own.
There is a tenderness that comes with recognising this.
I no longer look back simply through the eyes of the little girl who lost her father, but through those of a woman who has lived, loved, struggled, questioned, learned and grown.
And perhaps, in doing so, I have come a little closer to knowing him.
He never had the privilege of growing older. Of discovering what life might have taught him beyond his 36 years. Of becoming the man he might otherwise have been.
I sometimes wonder who he would have become, what conversations we might have shared, and whether, with the benefit of time, we might have come to understand one another in ways neither of us could have imagined.
Those questions, of course, have no answers, but there is something beautiful in the wondering.
His music remains an extraordinary legacy, but for me, his greatest significance lies somewhere beyond the records, the recognition and the legend.
It lies in the simple, profound truth that he was my father, and that, even in his absence, he has remained part of the unfolding story of my life.
Fifty-five years on, Dad, I am still discovering you and perhaps, in some small way, discovering more of myself along the way.
